Bosquet is around the corner from my house. I d just sunk some major money on new ski equipment my first in about

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1 5 th Sunday after Easter Sermon Scripture: Acts 16:9-15 John 14:23-29 Here s a Holy Spirit story. Last winter, I joined a downhill skiing race league. This surprised nearly everyone I know, not least me. Though a lifelong skier, I d never raced, could have as a kid, in the Lollipop League at Sugarloaf. But I didn t want to; I d never really wanted to. I d heard about this Tuesday night adult race league, though, at Bosquet heard that it was serious business for about 1/3 of the entrants and that, for the rest of them, it was just for fun. 20 years. Bosquet is around the corner from my house. I d just sunk some major money on new ski equipment my first in about Winter can be long and isolating and, since I m inclined not to leave my house after dark unless I ve made some prior commitment to do so, it can be especially isolating for me. (It gets dark at about four-thirty!) One afternoon in November, I was waiting at a checkout line when the man who organizes the league passed by and said hello. I said, Hey, I ve been thinking, maybe this winter Okay, I was signed up. I was a consistent racer consistently slow, that is. I tended to come in 90 th place 90 th out of 110 or so. (And, as you can see, I kept my day job.) A woman named Emily was often just ahead of me, or just behind, and we became friendly around this fact. We d wonder why, how we d ended up racing. Midlife crisis? Chasing after some distant dream? For both of us, it seemed to be this, a shrugging Uhuh. When the racing season was over, Emily invited a handful of women skiers for an overnight at Stratton where she had a small ski cabin that had long been in her family. Only two others were free to go, and I was one of them. When time came, we almost didn t make the trip. The warm spring had made ski conditions lousy. The forecast even called for rain, which is the worst 1

2 weather to ski in. Plus, there s the fact that I really, really don t like to go away, had only left my kids for the night once before, three nights, three years earlier. The other women tended toward this too. Very little within me was up for this. On the other hand, we d all gone to some length to arrange for childcare and meals at home in our absence. We d packed and planned and now come together to share a ride. Should we go? It honestly was not me that said, Let s go. Let s just go, though it was my voice, my gesturing hands, my leaning-forward body. And it got us all on the road, and eventually up to Stratton where we settled in for the night fire kindled, sleeping bags unfurled. We talked about kids, careers, things we have in common, things we don t. And they mentioned their mutual friend, Dean. Saying little that was committed, the two talked a lot about him his love of gardening, his love of skiing and hiking, his urgent hold on life, his sometime erratic way: Dean Fulco. Fulco? I asked. Would I know his mother? She lives up the street from me? Yes, they said, now seeming a little more cautious. Berkshire County is small; you don t want to say the wrong thing. Skiing the next day was fun, wet, strangely happy-making. The whole trip seemed to lend meaning as to why exactly I d signed up for racing. I didn t improve at racing and didn t really care to; I didn t even particularly enjoy it. But, if it gave me a couple of ski buddies, then good. It was a Monday morning a few weeks later when I got a Facebook message from one of the two women, and then a few minutes later from the other. They each needed to talk with me. Could I call, and soon? Each said separately that it was about a friend. It was urgent. Dean, I knew. I d call them just as soon as I could. ***** 2

3 Paul hadn t gone to Philippi in order to meet up with Lydia. Though that is, indeed, what ended up happening, Paul hadn t gone seeking a convert in this wealthy Gentile woman, in this the first European known to be moved by the gospel. No, Paul had gone to Philippi because he had received a vision of a man saying to him, Come over to Macedonia and help us. It had nothing to do with Lydia; it had everything to do with this mysterious man. Who exactly he was isn t clear isn t clear in the story and apparently never became clear to Paul. After all, once Paul reached Macedonia (at this man s call, at his vocare) Paul never then connected with this man, never it seems saw him again. In short, the reason for Paul s effortful trip apparently never came to pass. And effortful it was. Getting from Troas to Philippi amounted to traveling 100 miles, maybe 150 miles; it also amounted to traveling over land and over sea several days spent walking, sailing, waking again. From Troas to the island Samothrace in the Aegean Sea to Neopolis and at last to Philippi, the journey brought Paul and his friends from modern day Turkey to modern day Greece and amounted to this being Paul s first visit to European soil and the gospel s first hearing among European people. And all of this, of course, adds up to mean that this, Paul s journey, was, and is, significant in many ways. But, listen, none of the ways in which it was and is significant have anything thing to do with what first got it going: a vision come to Paul of a Macedonian man saying, Come over to Macedonia and help us. What s more, it s funny that this urgent call landed Paul in what seems a state of remarkable calm. In Philippi, Paul and his friends are remembered to have remained for some days. They re said then, on the Sabbath Day, to have gone outside the gate by the river in search of a place of prayer, and at last to have come upon some women gathered there. No trouble; no distress; no deep need for good news, for gospel news: Philippi seems then to have been a comfortable place for Paul and his friends to have landed. Whatever help the Macedonians might be said to have needed isn t immediately apparent at least 3

4 not to me, and perhaps not to Paul. Whatever the situation in Macedonia that spurred the Spirit to speak to Paul (to call to him, vocare) about coming over, it wasn t one of any obvious urgency. I can t help to wonder if this puzzled Paul, maybe even annoyed him a bit which is really more a question about me, and perhaps a question about you. Would you have been puzzled by so effortful a journey with so roving and unrevealed a purpose behind it? Would I have been annoyed by such an urgent call to nothing all that pressing? ( Mom! my kids call me, What is it? I respond, Never mind, they say after a moment s quiet. Mom! they call, What? I say, Uh, I forget. Mom! they call ) How great a reward do any of us expect from something that demands no small amount of effort? In the cost-benefit analysis that is life-these-days, what return do we need in order to make something feel worth it? ***** John s gospel has us abiding once again. Back before the crucifixion and resurrection, back on the night of the last supper with his friends in an upper room following perhaps a Seder feast, Jesus preached his Farewell Discourse and was about to offer up his High Priestly Prayer. Judas Iscariot had gone out into the night to summon a detachment of Roman solders and some police of the chief priests who would later arrest Jesus; the rest of the disciples sat listening, perhaps puzzled themselves about all that Jesus was saying; and Jesus spoke, as he so often did according to this gospel, about abiding: his abiding in the Father; the Father abiding in him; those who keep his word and so abiding in both the Father and the Son; and these two, Father and Son, coming to make a home within us each and among us all. Meno is the Greek original, and it s rendered in English in a variety of ways: dwell, stay, remain, persist, and of course abide all words familiar enough, signifying actions familiar enough. But it still feels so abstract: how do you abide in God, how does God abide in you? What behaviors does this goal demand? What does this actuality look like lived out? 4

5 This section of the discourse came in response to a question. Judas (not Iscariot) had asked, Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world? And Jesus answered him, Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home in them. And as usual, it s not a direct answer to the question posed. But it s also not entirely enigmatic. Jesus will reveal himself most ultimately in the cross; and it s a revelation that some will find scandalous, even sickening, gruesome, morbid; and that others will find simply commonplace one more crucifixion, one more imperil show of its terrible power, one more It s a revelation that a chosen few will find revealing, truly revealing. What s more, among those made to see the glory of God in the cross, the ultimate victory of self-giving love in Christ crucified, the persistent and purposeful acting of the Lord amidst the creation toward an end of universal salvation and reconciliation the Father will come to dwell and the Holy Spirit will come a-calling. (Advocate it is called, ad-vocare in Latin, which is to call to. ) The Advocate will teach this group of people everything, will remind this group of people of everything that Jesus had said to them. Though Jesus would leave them, the Advocate would come and peace would come yet peace not as the world has to give it, with its undercurrents of defensiveness and anxiety and fear; but peace as only the Lord can give it, that all shall be made one, that all shall be made well, that all shall be made accountable and sensible even to those of simple human minds. Of course, I take this group of people to be the Church the people for whom the cross is indicative of ultimate good news, which is for all people. I take this group of people to be the Church. But listen, we re chosen not because there s something especially deserving about us, or anything particularly righteous. The Church isn t given sight where the world makes blind because we re pure or good or more blessed or of higher worth. The Church, those who comprise its body as members, is given sight and wisdom, is a place where God in Christ comes to abide, merely because we re open to that open to God; open to Christ; open to an in-dwelling that, though itself 5

6 good, yet moves in and takes over, becomes the all in all the guest who becomes the host. We re open to grace. And, listen, we re opened by grace. ***** Dean s funeral was utterly right though gathered in response to something utterly wrong, the gathering was utterly right. (Resurrection is a setting of things to right again.) It was right for his wife, who d found him. It was right for his mother who has suffered like him. It was right for his large extended family, all yet in Berkshire County. It was right for the community (200 or more) that included so many people I m connected to from contexts other than Church, and that I now know are connected to one another. It was right for me, shaping this thing that, in part because of my handiwork, took just the right form yet hardly because of my handiwork alone. And it was right, too, because it had me more fully understand what had seemed disconnected, even incoherent, events of the previous four months of my life. Atypical decisions had landed me in just the right place where I could most fully serve the gospel, and to those who wanted it, at a time when they most needed it, though wouldn t have known to ask for it how to ask, why to ask, of whom to ask for good news amidst what can only be as wrong, painfully wrong. Here I am. The Church, it seems to me, as a home for the Holy Spirit, where the Spirit stays and persists; the Church as a gathered body that has prayed to abide in God and to have God abide in us: the Church is a people living open to the possibility that our actions are made purposeful not entirely on our own. We do things, and we think these actions mean things; we esteem them as significant or frivolous; we judge them as important or merely for passing the time. And then we re surprised days, months, years later to discover that we were wrong in our estimation, we were foolish in our judgment; and that this is good news. The Church, it seems to me, is the body gathered for a purpose but what purpose we leave largely to be determined after the fact. And this is bizarre, I want you to know, I want us to know. In our culture of mission 6

7 statements and purpose positing something corporations do, and non-profits do, and congregations even do, and with the hope of saving themselves from dwindling participation and relevance the Church as a body that gathers in joyful spirit of uhuh comes, to me at least, as something of relief. Don t get me wrong: there is work to do, there is Gospel work to do. Feeding the poor, freeing the captive, loving the other, praying for enemies, hoping against hope and acting in the regard: there is plenty of work that the Gospel would have us do. But there is also this task: abiding, which is a strangely non-task. So let s go where we will, and then look back at where we ve been, and see what grace has done. Thanks be to God. 7